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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27030733">amongst the living, you are flesh and blood</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/heathermcnamara/pseuds/heathermcnamara'>heathermcnamara</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Call the Midwife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, i will update character &amp; relationship tags as i go but we all know what's going on here, yes this is an au very loosely based on bbc ghosts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:28:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,986</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27030733</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/heathermcnamara/pseuds/heathermcnamara</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>in this life, she just looks down at the piece of paper in her hand, the invitation with yesterday's date on.</p><p>(a bbc ghosts au, which is where the idea comes from, although i took a lot of liberties with it)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Delia Busby/Patsy Mount, Lucille Anderson/Valerie Dyer, Trixie Franklin/Barbara Gilbert</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. on returning, in many forms</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It wasn’t so much with any grand gesture, nor with any dramatic farewell, that Beatrix Franklin entered the station that Tuesday. Admittedly, she had blanched a little at the idea of a seven hour train journey to be undertaken completely alone. For all her airy comments about how it would be such a trial, and a complete curse on the complexion to be in such a confined space for that long -</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Oh, </span>
  </em>
  <span>really</span>
  <em>
    <span>, Patsy, I’m sure so much exposure to all that coal will age me at least ten years”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“But you already don’t look a day over forty!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Oh for God’s sake, put the lamp down!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The real reason was something that she would not have spoken aloud, not in a million years, not unless someone sat down and dragged it out of her (and dragged it out of her, for the most part, they had, sentence by hesitant sentence, not the whole story but a picture painted nonetheless). It was as simple as not wanting to be alone. To be stuck with her thoughts, to be forced to confront things that she’d buried, to be alone in a way she hadn’t been in years (a day to herself had been a rare enough occasion at work, and her godmother had made sure that she wasn’t left alone for too long), to be trapped somewhere with no way out, no way out but to sit and let herself be carried towards her destination.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was pretty fitting, in an awful way. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They’d known of course. They always knew. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Maybe “always” was a little overambitious, a little overstated. Many things could and had passed under the faux redhead’s nose unnoticed (so many things, things that now she wished she’d been brave enough to speak to her about), and she’d never been as close to Delia as she perhaps should have been (and that in itself had been born out of an almost childish … not resentment exactly, but something like jealousy - all gone now, of course). This though, they seemed to both be fully aware of without her ever really needing to speak of it. And true to form, they had not left her alone, not for long, spending all hours of the night just talking, the three of them sat in those chairs by the window. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Deciding to go home was a difficult thing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Edinburgh, in it’s own way, had become almost another home to her, and it made the train down even more of a miserable thing. The sky was as grey as she had ever seen it, yet it seemed to have this almost stubborn refusal to rain (much like the stubborn way in which she held back her own, clouds darkening her vision). Patsy and Delia had not been staying there for the holidays, rather, going to Delia’s parents home in Pembrokeshire - </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Dreadfully isolated, no phone line at all”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“You can write of course - please write, promise?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They had invited her, of course they had, Delia had promised her parents would absolutely adore her and that it would be no issue at all but Trixie was adamant that she wouldn’t impose.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was a long journey, just over seven hours, and the few things she’d brought to occupy her time were proving altogether useless. After all, a fresh coat of nail varnish (a shiny peach that’s label proclaimed it “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Sweetie</span>
  </em>
  <span>”, a colour that Patsy had let herborrow, claiming it didn’t quite suit her) would only take so long, even allowing for the ridiculous length of time it always seemed to take for it to dry. She’d also, perhaps a little naively, expected the train to be far busier than it was - full of people returning to London for the holidays, couples taking a romantic break, families coming down to visit. The usual hustle and bustle of this time of year seemed to be gone, replaced with that all too familiar cold - not the kind that any coat protects against (no matter how stylish, or how practical), not the kind that could easily be remedied with a hot bath and a warm mug of tea. No, this cold was the kind that would creep into a person’s very bones, leave them shaking as they breathed the ice in and out, hollow out their ribs and make a home in their heart.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A sort of curse, a fairytale gone wrong, an eternal winter that would never leave. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Then again, it wasn’t as if Trixie ever visited her own family.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She had wanted to come home for Christmas. Nonnatus was her only home, and it may as well have been the only one she’d ever known. It did feel like that sometimes, on the days where the realisation of just how many years of her life (and real years - the ones that meant something) had been spent within those walls where nuns and nurses came to stay, ever changing, but she had remained.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was meant to be temporary - nothing against them, of course, but when she first started, living with nuns had not been her idea of a good time (and that was, as it seemed, all she had cared about then, the next good time). She had planned to stay a little while, gain more experience and then move on, but before she could pause to think, it had been the better part of a decade, and that place had made a home in her heart. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So many of them had left for other places to call home now. Patsy and Delia’s home seemed to be in each other, and a part of her, an almost unexplainable part, envied that. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Oh, she’d said to Phyllis, all that time ago, that a man wouldn’t make her happy, that she didn’t need one, but being loved was another thing entirely.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Valerie considered the East End her home, every street stained with memories. Walking around with her meant anecdotes, stories, recollections, almost enough to rival even Sister Monica Joan. She’d remained, and so she would forever, Trixie thought. It was hard to imagine the place without her now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lucille had left behind her home for here, but seemed as if she had a great deal of attachment left to it. She was beginning to make one here, she was one of them and it felt in so many ways as if she always had been. In the quiet touch of a hand on a shoulder when it was needed, in the gentle laugh, in the way she could burn with a silent flame, a candle that would never go out.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Phyllis was meant to be temporary, as she had loved to remind them all when she first arrived, only there for however long they had needed her. But they did need her still, and perhaps always would. But part of Trixie was always sure that she would move on - perhaps travel again, or go to work in a place like Hope Clinic, go on to do great things, with all the time in the world.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She supposed that in the same way Poplar never stopped needing her, those of Nonnatus never really stopped needing her either. For all her fiery exterior, and her walls of practicality, there was a true heart of gold hidden inside her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The nuns, she was fairly sure, also considered it their home, although not quite in the same way. Their home seemed to simply be wherever their work lead them - and most of them that had come and gone had no qualms about doing so. The disconnect despite their shared sisterhood in their work, in the place they called home, however temporarily for some, could be felt so sharply sometimes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A wimple could be a wall, something that Trixie knew all too well.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Where did - or, had - Barbara called home other than here? Liverpool, she presumed, but she wished she knew more than that. Barbara had spoken often enough of her family, her older sister Margaret (whose hideous hand me downs Trixie was unfortunately all too familiar with, and she had cursed her name many times), her father (the pastor, who seemed to regard Barbara more as an employee than as a daughter), and her mother (who by all regards, seemed to be a perfect saint). Her own place too, her home she had built with Tom, the place that he had left, not being able to bear it - and Trixie hadn’t blamed him for it. It was still hard to picture her anywhere but here, her almost four years echoing in the hallways, etched into the very stones of the building itself.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was even harder to picture her in her coffin.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Had she been cold? As cold as she was now? Had she felt alone? Had she been scared?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She hated the way people spoke of the dead. Always had done. It almost didn’t bear thinking about, but some part of it lodged in her brain, not allowing her to let it go.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The train station at the other end passed in a blur. Last time she’d been here still hung heavy in her mind, and it was harder than Trixie believed anything really should be to just not think of it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The rain, the pouring, torrential rain.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The piece of paper in her hand.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The invitation with yesterday’s date on.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Not thinking about it used to be easier (all it took was a sip, a glass, a bottle, and she was fine - right as rain, up for anything, life of the party). But she was better now - she was better and she </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew</span>
  </em>
  <span> she was and she couldn’t do this all over again. Once was awful enough, twice was a bloody charity case, and three times - </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Well, she didn’t think she’d survive three times.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She really wasn’t sure how the bus journey to Nonnatus had gone - blankly handing over her ticket, pressed up against the window, eyes half shut - but it felt shorter than it ever had before. Maybe she didn’t really want to be back, didn’t really want to come home to - to whatever </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> was. All she wanted, really, was to go home and crawl into bed, to wrap that familiar duvet around herself and drift off to sleep. But, she supposed, she’d had enough months off, time off, that it would be right back to work (and God knows she felt bad enough already).</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was raining here. The steps of Nonnatus, usually fairly sheltered by the overhang, were seemingly half flooded, made worse from the comings and goings of those who resided within. Two steps up, a hastily flung door, and a very shocked nurse later, Trixie was right back on the ground where she started.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Only this time, she was lying there, unresponsive. </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m terribly sorry, Nurse Franklin.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The words crept into Trixie’s consciousness, danced their way around her brain, letter by disjointed letter, and she reached up to rub her eyes (a terrible habit, she knew), but she couldn’t quite locate the source. As her hand moved, she heard murmurs, shuffling, and half wondered what on Earth could be going on.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She winced as she opened her eyes, the light being a great deal brighter than she had previously remembered it. She blinked, letting the world slowly come back into focus.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then she blinked again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The nuns were crowded around her bed (a fairly rare sight to see them all at once on an occasion that was not dinner time), right next to Phyllis, who must have been the source of the voice she had just heard - although, at second glance, it was only two of the nuns and maybe … her vision was a little cloudy, but for the life of her, she could not recognise the faces of the other two - maybe the girls had come to check on her? As she forced herself to sit up, they seemed to recede, and she was vaguely aware of a familiar hand gripping hers, if only for a second.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then it was gone.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I appreciate the welcome, but I don’t quite know if you all need to be here.” Trixie did her best to offer up a smile, not meaning any harm, but quite overwhelmed by the current situation.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A concerned look filled the other nurse’s face, a gentle frown beginning to form. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s only me, lass. I’m the only person here.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Trixie stared at the crowd, suddenly fixated on the details (they were not, after all, her nuns, her nurses … something was so terribly off, so awfully wrong). She was about to respond, convinced she had finally lost her marbles, finally gone completely off the -</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And she had hit her head, of course.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, Phyllis. I’m terribly sorry, I must have still been dreaming,” Trixie began, carefully, trying her best not to look at - at whatever on Earth was going on at the foot of the bed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She swore that one of the nuns had just rolled her eyes (and in that moment she was reminded so clearly of sister Evangelina), and she turned back to face them, but they seemed to have scattered, figments of her imagination returned to her. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ll be completely fine.”</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Two days later, and she was attempting to recount the entire tale to a very disbelieving Valerie and a slightly perplexed Lucille, as the three of them packed their bags for the day. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Honestly, Valerie, you’ll never believe what a fright I had - I was practically seeing things and I thought someone grabbed my hand!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are you quite sure it wasn’t just Phyllis?” Valerie demanded, sending an accusatory look towards her, albeit one tinged with a slight smile, the kind that only Valerie could do so well.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lucille reached over for a fresh roll of bandages, nudging Valerie a little in the process. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you suppose you were close to dying?” She asked, with a teasing edge to her voice.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Valerie gave her a look that Trixie couldn’t quite place.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I must have been half asleep,” Trixie sighed, giving up on trying to convince them of anything much, “The nuns were distorted, and I think the two of you shrank!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, charming”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“None of us ever came into your room, Trixie” Lucille added, gentle as ever. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And that was that on that.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Except when she looked up, last to leave the room, the other two having rushed out already and saw her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>One of the nuns was standing in the corner of the room, and although at first Trixie thought it might be Sister Julienne, she was too young - but too old to be Sister Winifred, Sister Frances. Her eyes seemed to be elsewhere, but she gave the faintest of smiles, and simply walked off.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Right through the wall.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Trixie had decided, as a matter of principle, not to mention this to Valerie or Lucille again (or God forbid, Phyllis). It was a side effect of hitting her head so badly, something that would surely fade in a few more days. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She didn’t know what she would do if it didn’t, but she pushed that thought aside as easily as it had arrived.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As she entered her room that night (Valerie was out on call still, something that Trixie was incredibly grateful for), she was sure she could hear the sound of footsteps, someone running, and a harsh whispered call (something like Polly? Peggy?), but it could be any number of children running around outside in the streets below. She hoped they got home safe, it was getting rather late. Or maybe it was a group of carol singers, there was only a matter of time until Christmas, after all.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Their first Christmas without her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Normally, the rain on the roof as she tried to sleep would be a comfort to her, but something was distorted about it, something wasn’t quite right. Lying in bed, with the gentle drumming as a backdrop, she tried to let herself drift off - a weary ship upon the stormy sea - and it seemed to be working enough, until -</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was a girl in the corner. Trixie’s half asleep mind couldn’t place her, but she seemed to be watching her sleep, and she wished she could open her eyes enough to see her. She seems so familiar, comforting, warm. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She’s dreaming, she decides, and she drifts back into sleep.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was raining then too.</span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. the loneliness never left me, i always took it with me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was raining here. In another life, Trixie thought to herself, a glimmer of subconsciousness reminding her of who she had been, she might have declared it downright torrential and sought out some fashionable way to weather the storm, seeking out an excuse to pour over a magazine, waltz into a department store and return perfectly coordinated the other side of it, all in one piece. Maybe something red, something eye catching, something quite different from the more muted tones of her workday wardrobe.</p><p>She wasn’t sure if it was even possible anymore to count how many times she had repeated this sort of phrase to those around her, something along the lines of dressing for the occasion, how looking put together even at one’s worst made all the difference. She wasn’t sure either, if that were particularly true anymore. To have pride in one’s appearance, she had always reasoned, was not wrong. To want to look good, to ensure that the best possible version was presented, nothing could ever be wrong about that.</p><p>(She’d barely cast a thought towards what she was wearing today)</p><p>In this life, she just looks down at the piece of paper in her hand, the invitation with yesterday’s date on.</p><p>
  <em>“You’re letting the side down.” She had said, as she took her hands, noticing the trembling, noticing the way vacant, watery eyes could not meet her own.</em>
</p><p>She had known from the moment she left that she wouldn’t make it in time.</p><p>Some part of her remembered a promise - to herself, to Christopher - a promise that she would not be gone so long as to need her warmest clothing, not so long that the Autumn air would creep in. The six months allowance from Sister Julienne, in all honesty, had seemed far too much for her when she was first granted leave, and she had very much not intended to take all of it, her heart and mind set on being back by the time the summer had crawled to a lazy end.</p><p>And so the clothes had remained unpacked, delicate knits and thicker blouses left to take up half of the wardrobe that she shared with Valerie, in the room that so many would spend their time in, even in her absence. Trixie had often found herself wondering if Valerie had moved her belongings to make room for more of her own, or if Lucille, after a particularly exhausting night had fallen asleep in the bed she had known as hers for so many years instead of making it back to her room, or even if Barbara -</p><p>Barbara.</p><p>Well, she was trying not to think of Barbara at all.</p><p>Shopping for a new seasonal wardrobe in Portofino had been quite the task, something that a previous version of herself would have delighted in, but this year only set to remind her of her failures. With every storefront passed, every beautifully made piece admired, every bag that weighed down her journey to her temporary home, she had grown quieter. The promise of a return to London before she would find use for them had long since gone unaddressed, a silent reminder that she still somehow wasn’t considered well enough.</p><p>If it hadn’t been for her bloody pride, it need not have been so long.</p><p>She hadn’t called Christopher to drive her home like she had promised. She hadn’t even told him that she was coming back. And under the circumstances, it made sense. He was far from the first thing on her mind when she decided to return, to race her worst fears back to Nonnatus House.</p><p><em>The phone fell from her hands, plastic hitting the wooden side table with a dull</em> <em>thud.</em></p><p>
  <em>Vision blurring, knees buckling, sinking to the floor.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A vague awareness of another presence, a familiar voice.</em>
</p><p>Maybe she had been lucky, luckier than she realised, that she was in Portofino, instead of alone, or even at Nonnatus, where she knew she would have slipped under the radar, and slipped something into her drink, slipped back into old habits in some desperate attempt to make it better, to return to normalcy. But in other ways, her loneliness was never a lack of people - oh, since birth she had surrounded herself with people - but a lack of something deep inside her that she could never place. How hopelessly alone it was still possible to feel amongst the comings and goings of day to day life was a mystery that she was sure she would never resolve.</p><p>Sometimes, when Trixie really couldn’t sleep, when the shadow of night hung far too heavy, she would wonder - did she really love being the centre of attention as much as she claimed to, or was it the thought of being alone that scared her the most? And alone had, in the past, meant a desperation not to be, by whatever means possible, whether the company was in the shape of other people, or in a carefully crafted cocktail.</p><p>Attention was easier than love. It had always been the case.</p><p>Love came in abundance when it was least expected, but not always in the way it was needed.</p><p>Maybe that was the best way her relationship with her godmother could be explained - it had always been distant in a physical nature, and perhaps at times, also an emotional one. Neither of her parents had been particularly religious, and she was never really sure, upon an albeit rare reflection, if her brother had even had a godparent. Yet, regardless of the details, Margot had been a huge part of her life.</p><p>As a young child, she’d only really seen her once, maybe twice a year (those beautiful summer weeks spent at her house feeling as if she could exist in the moment forever, those tense Christmas visits where she wished for nothing more than the world to end that very second). The visits slowed as she grew older, between Margot jetting off around the world, and everything else going on (“everything else” had always been a peculiar way of phrasing it, but now wasn’t the time for that).</p><p>And then all of a sudden, when she left for nursing school (left, or ran, it was never truly clear, lines left deliberately blurred, words left purposefully unsaid), it was regular letters, accompanied by Italian Vogue, and a silent agreement that she was there if anything was needed. By then, she had decided she was her own family, decided she needed no one, no matter how desperately lonely it could get sometimes (and it was just a bottomless pit, keep falling and it feels like flying eventually).</p><p>There had been a time in her life, a time that lasted longer than she would care to admit, where she was so desperate for her approval, for a beautifully written letter congratulating her on her achievements, whatever they may be (and she’d had big dreams, once upon a time).</p><p>(she’d believed she had finally done it back when she first had a ring grace her finger, but that hadn’t lasted)</p><p>Margot was the only person in the world who used her full name with any regularity. Contrary to popular assumption, nobody had called her Trixie growing up, not until she started refusing to answer to Beatrix and insisting that Trixie was her name. Over the years, that had mellowed out to a simple “my friends call me Trixie”, an invitation to eschew formality and adopt the nickname that so many had grown to know her by.</p><p>Needless to say, she was the one person Trixie would never dare ask that of, despite the fact she was now an adult who could handle herself well enough, thank you very much.</p><p>She did still wonder to this day how much she knew &amp; how much of what she knew was left unsaid.</p><p>She hadn’t told her the first time. Had merely replied to a note on the latest cocktail trends and implied that she was not drinking to retain a youthful glow, much the same lie she had told to the others way back. Looking back though, she must have picked up on that &amp; noted it, because the recommendations seemed to stop there and then.</p><p>This time, she’d come clean, told the truth, admitted it all, details forever etched in black and white, ink on a page (and the finality of that scared her somewhat, the knowledge that somewhere, in her godmother’s home, so many of her best kept secrets lay so casually, as if they were just words).</p><p>It was as close to telling someone everything as she’d ever managed to get.</p><p>Well, almost everything.</p><p>Some things were better left unsaid.</p><p>
  <em>Her own opinions of love, how she was beginning to believe it wasn’t possible for her - would she remain loveless forever? Alone forever?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>How she wasn’t sure if it was her destiny to drink herself into the grave, destined to hurt everyone around her - so it was better really that she was alone, and would most likely remain so.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Christopher, how she’d turned him down, left him, ran away from whatever it was they could have had.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ran away, like she always did, in her own way.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>How it was so possible to run away and yet remain in the same place for years with no roots, like one of those flowers kept in a glass case, a suspended rose.</em>
</p><p>This, in it’s own way, was still running away, really. Pretending it was a holiday.</p><p>The phone call changed everything of course.</p><p>After the phone had dropped, after Margot had picked it up and offered a rather more collected response, she had also offered, in seemingly the same breath, for Trixie to stay longer.</p><p>Oh, she’d known exactly why. She was scared, scared of her relapsing again. She was all too aware of that.</p><p>But Trixie, being herself (although as far removed from herself as she had ever been), had insisted. She needed to be there for the funeral.</p><p>She wasn’t even sure how she’d booked her flights, packed her belongings (although her godmother, bless her, bless her, had helped her through all the unspoken suffering).</p><p>The journey remained a mystery, most of it spent shrouded in a fog. She hadn’t even been sure what day it was.</p><p>Not until it was too late.</p><p>And part of her cursed them for not waiting, part of her seethed with silent rage. They could have waited, they could have held it off for a day or so until she could be there, until she could say goodbye.</p><p>Most of her blamed herself. If she’d been more put together, then … well, none of this would have happened. Maybe she would even still be alive.</p><p>And an even smaller part of her, a deep seated bitterness, was telling her that of course Tom got to go. He was the most important person in Barbara’s life now, and to hell with everyone else who’d ever cared about her.</p><p>To hell with those who’d known her longer, those who’d loved her longer.</p><p>So she’d left, two phone calls later, with a train ticket tucked into her coat pocket.</p><p>She knew exactly where she needed to be right now - her and Patsy understood each other in a way that neither of them could verbalise, or would ever try to.</p><p>They hadn’t even invited Patsy and Delia.</p><p>Many a conversation had been had about that fact, the three of them curled up in those chairs by the window. Patsy in her quiet anger, Delia in her false calm, Trixie in her emptiness. In their own ways, they’d all missed how it used to be. It wasn’t the same without Barbara, it never would be, but at least in a new place, the absence felt less gaping, less like an ever looming abyss, threatening to swallow them all.</p><p>Less like a part of them had been severed.</p><p>As the door opened, the little green door that Trixie would grow to know so well, the way the paint peeled in the bottom corner, the way it creaked if it was pushed too gently, she felt as if her knees would cave in.</p><p>
  <em>“Happy birthday, Trixie.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’d forgotten”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“We didn’t”</em>
</p><p>The two of them had never really acknowledged each other's birthdays. The nuns would have made a fuss and both of them hated it in their own way (Patsy for reasons she would never say, and Trixie for reasons she would never think of).</p><p>It had always been Barbara - Barbara, and Delia, the pair of them so thoughtful, who would buy iced buns and bring them to dinner, claiming that they just felt like it that day, who would leave some small gift on a pillow when they had the opportunity.</p><p>Barbara had written a card last year, a card that as far as Trixie knew, was still in her bedside drawer with everything else close to her heart that was still left in Nonnatus. Even the thought of reading her words, seeing her handwriting -</p><p>Nobody wrote her letters. Nobody save her godmother, and on occasion, when she remembered she existed, Patsy.</p><p>It had been so easy to fall back into that rhythm with Patsy, that unspoken understanding they both had. Delia, who she’d been almost jealous of back when she first met her, had hugged her so tight on the very first day that it almost broke her right back down again. They’d all dealt with loss in their own ways before.</p><p>Not like this though. Never like this.</p><p>(and Trixie never mentioned the way the two of them shared a room, left it entirely unspoken).</p><p>Two months passed in this way, with the three of them falling into a familiar pattern, but the lingering threat of the holidays still hung in the air.</p><p>She didn’t want another Christmas alone, and she’d promised Christopher (promised, in her own casual, noncommittal manner, but a promise nonetheless) that she’d be back before the cold returned but - it had taken a while, longer than she’d hoped.</p><p>Some part of her knew he would understand, knew he would listen to her explanations - however difficult it was to find the right words - that a part of her that was now missing and she would never find it, never find it ever again, just had to learn to live without, and she didn’t know how to do that quite yet, or if she ever could.</p><p>Patsy and Delia were going to Pembrokeshire, and Trixie was welcomed, but she needed to be at Nonnatus. Even if it would break her heart all over again.</p><p>And back at Nonnatus, time was a rough expanse, a treacherous land that nothing would grow in, no seed planted in hope of a better tomorrow. The decorations for a season so full of love seemed to grow teeth, to smile wickedly and say “Look at us. Look at how everyone else is celebrating. Look at what you’re missing out on.”</p><p>It was stranger than it had ever been, like someone had instructed them all to run on different old clocks, ones that had fallen ever so slightly out of time with each other. Gaps in conversation that would be filled, half expecting to lay another plate for dinner. Lucille abruptly coming to a half mid suggestion, Valerie going to write her name on the call list, Sister Julienne and her hands and eyes both avoiding the bag that had been left behind.</p><p>Left behind, like they themselves had been.</p><p>Left behind, like her cardigan had been.</p><p>If Trixie had known, if she had realised how long she would be going away for, she would never have left all her clothes like that - just sitting there in the wardrobe, a veritable feast for the eyes and moths alike. She was never careless with her belongings, never one to ladder a stocking (no, that had been Barbara), or catch a loose thread (no, that had also been Barbara). So, to have it all wrecked in her absence was really uncharacteristic for her. Even her work uniform had been eaten away, that familiar red cardigan she’d had for so many years - and as much as she sometimes complained of the uniform, she was so very proud to wear it.</p><p>Even prouder to wear Barbara’s, name stitched into the lining (even though Phyllis had offered, she would never remove it, a tangible reminder that part of her still existed, part of her was still around, still here with her).</p><p>It was as close to a final goodbye as she would ever get. A final gift, a parting present. She’d received it on the very night of her return, from Phyllis, who was barely holding back her own tears.</p><p>She’d let herself cry then. Let herself let go, as Phyllis gently pressed the cardigan into her shaking hands, as Phyllis, usually so stoic, usually so put together, gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.</p><p>It only served to make her cry more.</p><p>It was sometimes as if Trixie could hear her heartbeat in the cardigan, a heartbeat that seemed to whisper on. On and on and on until she swore she could hear it echo in the frosted air around her - a familiar reminder of all she had lost, and all that still remained.</p><p>The cardigan was wrapped around her, cigarette in hand, when she saw him.</p><p>Since she’d returned, it had become a tradition to creep out to the garden as dawn broke, to sit in silence for a few moments, just her and a cigarette and the creeping first rays of sunlight. She’d never much been one for silent - well, silent anything - before, but she’d found herself needing moments of peace, moments that she could be alone.</p><p>
  <em>Moments that said, this is mine, I exist and this is mine, and I am here.</em>
</p><p>Moments that didn’t remind her of what she was missing.</p><p>Usually, these moments were not interrupted (an oddity, in a place as perpetually tumultuous as Nonnatus), but this day was different. Two days before Christmas, and a young man was stood in the garden, staring right at the house, seemingly transfixed on some detail.</p><p>At first, Trixie believed him to be the son of a patient, had he come to … maybe even a father himself? He didn’t quite look old enough, but it could be so hard to tell sometimes. No, something about his manner, the way he held himself, seemed to imply otherwise. Hands shoved into his pockets, his relaxed posture. No, she decided, he had not come here for any urgent reason.</p><p>She watched, as the boy (and he was a boy, upon second glance, he seemed to be barely old enough to be out of school), seemingly unaware of her presence, brought a lighter out of his pocket, and clicked it. The flame seemed as if it were almost not here, blue flame waning into blue early dawn.</p><p>Trixie, half-heartedly, but almost instinctively went to offer him a cigarette (unusual for her, so protective over her precious Sobranies).</p><p>The boy started, and then offered a gentle smile, made dull with his otherwise vacant eyes.</p><p>“The lighter is something of an heirloom, I don’t … I can’t really accept that.”</p><p>He paused, offering Trixie a more genuine smile than before, “But thank you anyway.”</p><p>Trixie nodded, tucking the packet back away into her cardigan, before continuing.</p><p>“Are you alright? Is there a reason you’re here, or are you simply admiring the view of Fred’s garden?”</p><p>The boy followed her gaze to the garden in question - if it could truly still be called that, this far into the winter - and let out a little laugh, a quiet burst of character, before sighing, brow furrowing a little.</p><p>“I should apologise. For my - for my Peggy.”</p><p>Trixie was about to interrupt, to ask so many questions of this strange boy, when he continued, tight lipped, almost as if she wasn’t there.</p><p>“Every Wednesday, she … I suppose she must relive it. She runs for the shelter and nobody can say a single word to her. We don’t even tell her she does it.”</p><p>He didn’t even wait for the interruption he knew was coming, not even a half glance in the direction of the blonde, before he continued, tight lipped.</p><p>“Not ever. So you mustn’t, you really mustn’t.”</p><p>And the last sentence seemed half a plea, a plea tied up in such a blank tone that it seemed to have an edge to it - but for what?</p><p>“For my Peggy?” She wondered, a child or a sister, oh it must be a sister. But it had been so long … so long since the last bombs fell on London, if that was indeed what he was implying. At least eighteen years, give or take (maybe she was slightly older, older or perhaps even an elderly relative, a family friend, seeing as he seemed to not know the way to refer to her).</p><p>And that she understood entirely, family was what you make of it.</p><p>But then the familiar call from inside the house rang out into the garden and it was time to go, to help out with Shelagh at the clinic, and then she was out on call and that was that.</p><p>Too busy delivering Mrs Oliver’s fourth baby (yet another boy, that poor woman had her hands full already), closely followed by a rush over to assist Lucille with some very unexpected twins.</p><p>
  <em>“I simply can’t believe she’s even thinking of naming them after a Christmas carol!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I think it’s sweet.”</em>
</p><p>Too busy to even think about the very strange conversation with an even stranger young man - a boy really, perhaps around Timothy’s age.</p><p>Too busy walking back to Nonnatus with Lucille, both of them having chosen to wheel their bikes and enjoy a rare moment to themselves after what had been an incredibly long day.</p><p>It was nice, really, to have what felt somewhat close to a normal conversation. A conversation where no expectant pauses lay dormant, awaiting a response that would never come.</p><p>Trixie’s mind still wasn’t really in it.</p><p>Two days before Christmas.</p><p>“Do you ever miss your family?”</p><p>She hadn’t expected it, a question so direct from Lucille, who’s words had a tendency to gently wade their way into the deeper waters of these sorts of conversations, engaging, encouraging, keeping it all afloat until whoever she was talking to realised they were swimming by themselves (but always, always somehow with the promise of a hand to hold).</p><p>It was an awkward one to skate over, but the years of practice had Trixie spinning pirouettes over the entire topic, lightly, gently, as if nothing in the world could bother her.</p><p>A well rehearsed lie.</p><p>“Sometimes.”</p><p>And the answer is true enough. Sometimes, if the definition of <em>missing</em> can be twisted, can be contorted into whatever it is that she feels for them when she does dare to let the frail fingers of memory reach back. Sometimes. Now is not the time to dwell on that.</p><p>“Do you?”</p><p>She turns it back on Lucille, a gentle, yet firm reminder that there are things that remain unspoken, lines that remain uncrossed.</p><p>“More than ever, at this time of year. I don’t have any siblings, but my cousins lived so close we may as well have been. It was always a big gathering.”</p><p>Lucille paused, half in a reverent state of remembrance, half in what seemed - to Trixie, at least - to be somewhere between deep thought and distant memory.</p><p>“I’m so happy to be here though. With you, with Valerie - especially…”</p><p>She trailed off (so unusual for her, Trixie thought) and something in her seemed to change, to rephrase, reword.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m happy to be here with you all. Even if none of my family are.”</p><p>Trixie laughed, the first real laugh that had echoed from what remained of her usually painted lips in a long time.</p><p>“I’m sure there’s plenty of Valerie’s to go around, if you ask them. Half of Poplar, if you ask me!”</p><p>Lucille smiled - a genuine one, a warm and gentle grin - and continued.</p><p>“I don’t know, Trixie … it could be that half of all of the East of London are.”</p><p>The two of them were still laughing when they reached Nonnatus, the day’s efforts almost forgotten to the stretch of - what would hopefully be - peaceful sleep that awaited the pair.</p><p>Lucille put her bike away, and turned. She seemed to be half waiting, half about to say something. Expectant, somehow.</p><p>Trixie shook her head, shaking a cigarette case free from her pocket in what, to any onlooker, would seem to be the same movement.</p><p>The other girl nodded, full of understanding, and made her way inside.</p><p>The lighter flickered, blue flame, echoing into dark night.</p><p>It was then that she saw her.</p><p>There was a small girl by the bike shed. Somewhere between eight and twelve (it was ever so hard to place them at this age, she had learned, in her time here), she swayed in the moonlight, seeming to almost be part of the structure itself.</p><p>“Are you-”</p><p>She had so many questions to ask - what’s wrong? Why is she alone? Why is she out so late? Does her mother need help and had sent her out to fetch a midwife?</p><p>But the little girl, the little girl covered in what seemed to be soot or shadows, dirt or dust, simply shook her head.</p><p>“Peggy, Miss. I’m Peggy.”</p><p>And that was enough.</p><p>Ghosts. Trixie Franklin was seeing ghosts.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>me, updating a month and a half later, wine drunk at one am: hi girlies xxx</p><p>anyway, yeah ... there's a lot that goes on! but really altogether not that much ... </p><p>however, a lot more happens SOON so ... we will get to that (&amp; hopefully much sooner than this one!)</p><p>anyway, enjoy oof</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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